WSL 2022-23 Arsenal v Everton – Match Preview
by Andrew Crawshaw
Brought forward a day, to allow more preparation time for our Thursday evening Champions League game against Juventus, Arsenal Women take on Everton at Borehamwood on Saturday afternoon with a 14.00 kickoff. arsenal.com are covering the game live with a broadcast starting at 13:00
Following our first league defeat since March in our last game against Manchester United and with Chelsea having played a game more than us we start the weekend in second place in the table. We are behind Chelsea by three points but with a better goal difference so a win will see us top the table again, at least for an hour as chelsea kick off at 15:00 against bottom team Leicester and it will be a surprise of Biblical proportions if Chelsea don’t win that game convincingly.
Here is the current league table:-
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
| 1 | Chelsea | 8 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 20 | 6 | 14 | 21 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 20 | 4 | 16 | 18 |
| 3 | Man United | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 5 | 13 | 18 |
| 4 | Man City | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 17 | 8 | 9 | 15 |
| 5 | Aston Villa | 7 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 10 | 2 | 12 |
| 6 | West Ham | 8 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 13 | 16 | -3 | 12 |
| 7 | Spurs | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 12 |
| 8 | Everton | 7 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 9 | -2 | 9 |
| 9 | Brighton | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 26 | -16 | 7 |
| 10 | Liverpool | 8 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 16 | -7 | 5 |
| 11 | Reading | 8 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 9 | 20 | -11 | 4 |
| 12 | Leicester | 8 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 17 | -15 | 0 |
At long last there is a bit of good news on the injury front with both Leah Williamson and Rafaelle Souza back in the match day squad. Both have been out for a couple of months Leah with an ankle ligament problem she picked up in training on England duty and Rafaelle with a broken metatarsal following two poor challenges in consecutive games. Teyah Goldie is now back on the pitch following her ACL injury from last March but it will be unlikely if we see her in a matchday squad this year.
Lina Hurtig is still sidelined, following her hamstring strain, Kim Little is still out with her medial knee injury. Both are expected to be part of matchday squads before Christmas.
Beth Mead is obviously out for the rest of the season with her ACL injury and it is unlikely that she will be sufficiently recovered for next Summer’s World Cup. In his press conference on Friday Jonas Eidevall indicated that we would certainly be looking to the transfer market in January. Hopefully we will be able to find a suitable replacement, although how you replace the second-best player in Europe midway through the season is open to question. We could also recall Gio Queiroz from her loan with Everton but she would be far from a direct replacement.
Our last two matches against Everton have both ended in fairly comfortable 3 – 0 victories and even with our depleted squad, I would expect us to win by a similar margin this week.
Despite the return of Leah and Rafaelle to the squad, I would expect us to start with very much the same 11 as in our game against Juventus :-
Manuella Zinsberger (GK)
Katie McCabe, Steph Catley, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Laura Wienroither
Lia Walti, Frida Maanum
Caitlin Foord, Vivianne Miedema, Jordan Nobbs(c)
Stina Blackstenius
Subs
- GKs – Kaylan Marckese, Naomi Williams
- Defenders – Noelle Maritz, Jen Beattie, Leah Williamson, Rafaelle Souza, Katie Reid
- Midfielders – Mana Iwabuchi
- Attackers – Michelle Agyemang
The other WSL matches this weekend are
Saturday 12:30 – Manchester United v Aston Villa – United are playing well and their win last time out against Arsenal will give them a real confidence boost. I expect that they will have too much for Villa but that it will be a fairly close match. United to win but both teams to score.
Saturday 15:00 – Leicester City v Chelsea – Leicester are having a nightmare of a season and are currently without a single point. Chelsea have the strongest squad in the WSL and should win this game very comfortably, I wouldn’t be surprised if they score five goals or more.
Sunday 12:30 – Reading v Spurs – Neither team score many goals bur Reading are far more leaky at the back. I would expect Spurs to win by two goals
Sunday 14:00 – Manchester City v Brighton. City are now getting into their stride and should be too strong for Brighton who have conceded the most goals in the WSL so far this year. City to win with a three goal margin or more.
Sunday 14:00 – Liverpool v West Ham. Newly promoted Liverpool surprised everyone on the first weekend of the season by beating Chelsea, they then lost their next 5 matches but have rallied recently with two consecutive draws. West Ham have won 4 and lost 4. I think this one will be fairly tight, West Ham to edge it by a single goal.
Starting 11
manuella Zinsberger
Laura Wienroither, Lotte Wubben-Moy, Jen Beattie, steph Catley
Lia Walti, Frida Maanum
Vivianne Miedema
Caitlin Foord, Stina Blackstenius, Katie McCabe
Subs – kaylan Marckese (GK),Rafaelle Souza, Leah Williamson, Noelle Maritz,Jordan Nobbs,mana Iwabuchi, Michelle Agyemang
Katie McCabe starts in the more attacking role as Jen Beattie comes into the centre back role enabling Steph Catley to move to her preferred full back role. Jordan Nobbs moved to the bench
Miedema opens the scoring in the 24th minute
No further score in the first half. A competent but not fluid performance so far. More goals needed in the second half.
Man United won the early kickoff quite comfortably scoring four unanswered goals putting them top of the WSL with 22 points and a +18 goal difference. We need another two goals to better that but Chelsea will go back top assuming they dont lose against Leicester in the 15:00 kickoff.
One nil the final score. The Everton keeper on loan from Man United made a string of saves throughout the game to keep the score down.
We were too slow and deliberate in our build up and Everton always had the time to get defenders back.
Advantage back with both Chelsea and United in the title race as they have both outscored us with today’s results.
United won by 5-0 not 4 as I said earlier and Chelsea have a 5-0 lead at half time against Leicester.
We will need to be better from an attacking point of view in our CL game on Wednesday night, then Aston Villa next Sunday, Olympic Lyon on the 15th and finally Zurich in the Champions League on the 21st December before a well earned rest till January15 when the WSL restarts with a game at the Emirates against Chelsea which is already looking like a must win game.